Blakbird

It is unsprung suspension which is a perfectly valid variety. Virtually all heavy equipment has this. The manufacturer's web sites all call it suspension.

I buily my copy using the photographic instructions. They are excellent. There is no need to wait for CAD instructions, although the Ldraw file is available if you want to use it to supplement the photos.

Fair enough, but I think making technical observations about the first videos of the new Technic sets is a perfectly valid use of this forum. I like lots of things about the new sets, and I'll be getting all of them. I just don't like the decision to use a servo.

I suppose you may be right that a child won't care and just wants to have fun, but this seems to conflict with the Technic team's rule of "authenticity". Real loaders move slow and steer slow. The 8043 excavator was slow, and that was good because the forward speed was reasonably accurate. I also have a fundamental problem with the argument that "kid's won't care". I think if kids didn't care about accuracy they would not even buy LEGO Technic. Many kids do not care about these things and they play with other types of toys or balls or figures or video games. But the kinds of kids who buy Technic do care. In any case, it is very hard to judge from just a few seconds in a video. My data comes mostly from driving loader MOCs which use LAs and I know that they work very well and intuitively. I have never tried to drive a loader with a servo, so I guess I will have to reserve final judgement until I try it. I have a 12 year old son and he has no trouble driving my loaders. By that age almost any child should be able to learn to reverse the control to return to center. However, if the child has experience with R/C vehicles then it could be confusing. On the other hand, model aircraft require manual return-to-center. An airplane will not easily return to level to flight after an aileron input (unless it has very large dihedral) and a helicopter won't return to anything. Both require manual correction. In both cases these "toys" are for more advanced users. Maybe the servo is a way for LEGO to market to even younger customers. I thought the servo steering in 9398 worked very well. That was a case in which return-to-center makes a lot of sense.

I am not sure what you mean by that. You mean it would be too slow? I have 3 different R/C loaders right now which use a LA for steering and they work wonderfully. The movement and speed are very proportional to the real thing. From the video, it appears that the articulation with the servo is much too rapid and results in wobble at the joint. A return-to-center function is almost a must for a car, but for an articulated loader it is not very important at all. Because you are not simply rotating some wheels but the entire vehicle, it needs to happen slowly and smoothly.

I had previously missed the fact that the Volvo comes with yellow wheels! This will eliminate some of the workarounds required by MOC builders: The real Volvo has yellow wheels, but they are very solid whereas the LEGO wheels are open and look like they belong on a sports car. It would be nice to close off some of that space..... Gotta love the bucket though. It looks exactly like the real thing.

If you are in the USA, Lego Education is the way to go. I ordered 200 chain links, 120 treads, 50 24-tooth gears, and 50 wedge belt wheels from them for way under BL prices. Here are a couple of views of the mechanical internals to make it easier to see what's going on.

Would probably make more sense after the instructions are available. Hopefully that won't be too long!

We will have to wait for M_longer to answer. The instructions are complete, they just need to be submitted to MOC Plans and the parts list to Rebrickable.

PG52 is the same French AFOL who brought us the Spirograph. This is a very talented young man.

The use of a servo for steering of an articulated machine is odd. Don't get me wrong, I love the servo for cars. We waited for it for a long time and it works especially well with the train remote. However, this loader uses the regular remote meaning that the only options are steer or straight, nothing in between. You will very often want to steer at other angles, and you certainly will want to steer at a much lower rate. A linear actuator with an M motor is perfect for this kind of thing. I guess I'm glad they found another set in which to get the servo out to the masses, but I think this actually harms the realism of the set significantly. The truck is a lot bigger than I was expecting. That's a lot of red panels! Thanks LEGO.

OK, I guess there is interest after all! Bigger versions of all the pictures on my Bricksafe. This thing was a lot of fun to build. After each step I exercised the mechanism for a few moments to see what changes had been made since the last step. The real marvel of this is that it all works from a single motor or crank! Some observations on functions: The main drum rotates. This rotation is driven in two places. On the rear end, the drum is supported by a turntable. The turntable ring gear is driven with a 11.66:1 ratio with respect to the input crank. On the front end, the drum is supported by a pair of wedge belt tires which rotate while in contact with the outside of the drum. The tires have a ratio of 1.66:1. So why is the ratio 7x different between the front and the back? Because the back rotates the center of the drum directly, while the front rotates against the outer diameter. To get the final ratio at the front we have to consider the drum itself as a pulley and divide out the diameters. The OD of a wedge belt tire is about 76 LDU. The OD of the drum which is constructed of 48 treads rolled backward is about 450 LDU. This means the final drive ratio at the front end is about 9.83:1. You can see that it is not identical to the ratio at the back end which means there will be some minor slippage on the tires. Within the main drum are three thread carriers. Each thread carrier rotates in a direction opposite that of the main drum. This rotation is driven by the rotation of the main drum itself via an epicyclic gear system through a chain. In the image below each green gear is connected a thread carrier. The central black axle rotates clockwise with the drum. The yellow differential is a sun which is driven counterclockwise at a different rate and is connected to the green planet gears by the red chain. The differences in these rates determines the rotation rate of the thread carriers. The drum itself is the planet carrier. Within each thread carrier are three spools. Each spool rotates in the same direction as the thread carrier, opposite the direction of the main drum. This rotation is driven by the rotation of the thread carrier via an epicyclic gear system through a chain, which in turn is driven by another such system as described above. In this system each yellow differential acts as a stationary sun gear. It is locked to the drum via the 16 tooth end. The 24 tooth end drives the read chain. Because each thread spool is rotating, it acts as a planet carrier. The green gears within the planet carrier are driven by the difference between the rotation of the carrier and the stationary sun. (Don't forget to take a moment to appreciate the perfect geometry of the drum core.) Each spool within a carrier contains a different color of thread. Each carrier is the same as the others. So there are a total of three thread colors, each repeated three times. On each thread carrier, the thread is passed through a wedge belt wheel acting as a die. The fact that the spools are rotating faster than the die tends to pre-twist the threads. As the die rotates, it then twists the three threads together. I was surprised to note that the orientation of the chain links is important. When I first build the model there was a lot of binding in this planetary chain. I found that reversing the links so they moved tail end first instead of clip end first solved the problem. Each bundle of three threads then passes through a motorcycle wheel used as a die. This rotates with the main drum and twists the three bundles of three into a bundle of nine. Note that the winding direction of the bundles of three is opposite that of the winding direction of the main bundle. There are some pulleys between the carrier dies and the main die to direct the bundles where they need to go. With all this thread twisting you might think we are done, but there is lots more. How does the thread get drawn out of the spools and further down the machine? This is done with a tractor/tensioning device. A set of 4 driven tires draws the thread through a pair of rollers and a Technic pin hole. A pair of shock absorbers preload the rollers against eachother to provide enough friction to draw the thread. The speed of the tractor wheels compared with the speed of drum rotation determines the pitch of the wind. It is important that the thread spools have enough friction that they do not spin too easily or they can over spin and tangle the thread. The red driving ring at the bottom of the image is used to disengage the tractor device from the drum. The orange crank can then be used to rotate the tires and draw the thread forward during setup of the machine. The shock absorbers can also be compressed during setup to allow the thread to be inserted between the tires. After the completed bundle is drawn through the rollers, it needs to be spooled onto an output drum. This is one of the most marvelous mechanisms of the whole system. The red drum is the final spool for the braided bundle. It rotates to draw the bundle from the tractor. The blue device acts as a guide which rotates on a turntable. As the bundle is drawn onto the drum, the guide gradually translates across the width of the drum using a worm gear. It is important for the relative speeds to be right. The drum needs to rotate at the right speed to draw the thread from the tractor. The guide needs to translate at the right speed to allow about one width of thread bundle per drum revolution to be spooled. Perhaps most importantly, the guide needs to change direction when it reaches the edge of the drum. The 40 tooth gear on the lower part of the image is geared to the drum. The blue connector pushes against a bush which drives a spring loaded crank. When the crank passes over center, it translates the drive axle at the top of the image, also pivoting the red lever. This alters which tan bevel gear drives the 20 tooth double bevel, thus reversing the guide direction. It is important that these be synchronized so that the reversal happens at the right time. You can also see the translating spline joint with allows the drive axle to translate 1 stud. Finally, the dark gray pin connector acts as a clutch so you can manually crank the drum if you wish. This is important because the speed of the drum is initially not quite right. Because the effective diameter of the drum changes as it fills with thread, the speed at which it rotates technically needs to change in order to keep pace with the tractor. During the first layer of drum winding, it turns too slow and you have to turn the crank occasionally to avoid slack in the system. Once you get to the second layer, everything is nicely synchronized. Once you are done making your braid, I've noticed that there is no good way to remove it from the machine. I remove the white clutch gear in the previous image which allows me to rotate the drum freely and simply pull of the braid. The braid is very sturdy and does not tend to unravel. There is a fair amount of wasted thread due to setup, and a bit more waste at the end if the threads are not all exactly the same length. I am using 10 yard lengths in my machine, and the machine can make the entire braid in only a few minutes. One thing I hadn't thought about prior to building was how I was going to get the thread onto the spools to begin with. This turns out to be quite tedious. I ended up using the XL motor as a spool winder. I would remove each spool from the machine, plug it into the motor, and then guide the string with my fingers as it wound onto the spool. This thing is incredibly fun and in my opinion is a pure expression of what Technic is all about. It does not need to be all vehicles or things with wheels. This type of machinery is fascinating and teaches the builder as much or more about mechanics than a vehicle. It is likewise just as playable. However, setting it up and troubleshooting it would not be suitable for younger builders, or even older builders without a strong mechanical aptitude. Thank you Nico71 for this wonderful contraption! Feel free to download the CAD file which will allow you to take a closer look at all these mechanisms and understand them much better than with just a static picture. Better yet, build it! You don't even need a motor to see it operate. However, a motor is much nicer. I highly recommend the 9V train regulator. This allows you to adjust the speed and power the system from a transformer instead of batteries. Batteries will not last long. You'll need a 9V to PF adapter/extension to hook it up to the old regulator. Alternatively, you can get speed control from the PF rechargeable battery.

I'm interested in how Technic taught you about this first one since there aren't any Technic sets with cyclic. Are you referring to a MOC? There are a lot of things I saw for the first time in Technic and therefore already understood them when I learned about them in school: gears (spur, bevel, crown, worm), differential, Ackerman correction, synchronized transmission,etc. It is a very educational hobby. I think what is most impressive is that it can teach all this with no words and therefore there is no language barrier.

You pretty much have to use a shop compressor. I can't imagine making a LEGO compressor that could provide enough airflow unless you want the LPE to run very slowly.

CAD file is done. You can download it here and use it to supplement the instructions posted by Madoca. You can also use it to help auto-generate a parts list. And of course, here is the obligatory render. I think this is some kind of record for me. Madoca posted the original at 6 a.m. and by 6 p.m. I had the CAD file built!

Another amazing creation! One of my favorite things about Madoca's models is how well hidden the wires are, and therefore the model's lines are very clean. CAD file is half done.

I've finished building this model and was going to write some observations about how it works, but it looks like this is three posts in a row from me without any responses so maybe there is not any interest. Does anyone want some more information on how this thing works? It's awesome!

Seasider's explanation was correct, not a misconception. You may have noticed he mentioned that he has an Aeronautics degree. Seasider has summarized Bernoulli's Principle which, when applied to an asymmetric airfoil, explains how you can generate lift even with zero angle of attack. However, it is also true that any flat plate can also create lift simply by inclining it to the airstream. For example, you can stick your hand out a car window and experience lift by rotating the angle. In practice, real aircraft use both effects. Having a positive angle of attack generates a lot of drag, so it is not a very efficient way to create lift, especially when moving at high velocities. Modern jet aircraft have complex airfoils that generate significant lift with minimal angle of attack. The quoted article is interesting and does a good job of expounding on the more esoteric details of fluid mechanics as it relates to flow over a wing, but there is nothing wrong with Bernoulli's Principle and it fact it is used to daily to solve all sorts of fluid problems.

I have not had any such issue. In fact, I've found that the brakes don't really apply strongly enough to stop the wheels so they are a little too loose. The total amount of motion in the brake system is very small, so if anything is a little off it makes a big difference.

If anyone can take on the project of converting this from LDD to LDraw, I'll make some renders of it. It is a great model.

The lack of availability of the 1H2014 sets in the USA is getting really annoying. We don't even have a prediction of when they will be available. Those 5x11 panels are going to be nice. They were super hard to get since they only came in 8258. Red curved panels are quite common which is why you see so many red supercar MOCs. Red 5x11 panels are hard to get.

Keep in mind that the width of a Technic liftarm is not 1M. It is narrower than that to allow space between adjacent parts. So this does stress the pins, but not nearly as much as your figure would suggest.

Anything is possible. The Mustang lights are mounted to plates so there is no place to put the LED; this means you will need to make some modifications to make it work.

I've completed synthesizing all the string. My completed CAD file is available here for anyone who wants to use it so supplement Nico's photographic building instructions. It is not fully stepped, but it has many submodels and steps included which should be pretty helpful.

Any idea who actually made the video? I suspect it was Matthias, the same guy who did the images in the book. If so, he has access to some incredibly sophisticated tools and really knows how to use them. I am blown away.